I have often heard folks make disparaging remarks about Christianity or Christians or the church. Hypocrisy, self-righteousness and judgmental mentalities are the kinds of things at the top of the non-church-goers’ lists that bug them about “us”.

Well duh, “guilty as charged” with regard to any number of such poor behaviors. Why do you think we have come to Jesus??? No one becomes a Christian because they are good, but because they know they are not good. Only God is good.

If we would only read a little we would see that on nearly every page of the gospels Jesus is taking issue with hypocrites, self-righteous bigots and more and they were often the disciples! Letters, often with scathing rebukes, were written to churches to correct poor behavior.

And let’s face it, that if those complainers found a church full of perfectly
behaved Christians, they would not fit in!

That’s because we are all desperately in need of Jesus. In fact, that’s what the church was and still is; a collection of people who know they were messed up and so were coming to the only one who had the patience, forbearance, compassion, mercy and grace to forgive and help them.

That was the church then, and that is the church now, and it will always be the church because messed up people are the only kind of people there are.

By the way, if you are staying away from the Lord and his people (the church) and using their sometimes poor behavior as your excuse, then you are already one of us being a judgmental, “holier than thou” hypocrite; except that you are still without a savior.

We know we desperately need Jesus. We want you to understand how desperately you need him too.